This Dussehra kill these 10 bad habits for your Financial Wellness

Dussehra is the festival which symbolizes victory of Good over Evil. There are 2 stories behind it, One in which Lord Ram killed ten headed Demon King Ravana, and the second when Goddess Durga Killed Demon Mahishasura, and in both essence is the same.

I believe that every festival, every story coming from Mythology has a lesson behind it. It is depicted by different characters, written and told to bring wisdom and goodness in us to conduct our lives in a better way.

The Good and Evil are both within us. Ram and Ravana both are parts of our life and it is up to us who we want to encourage more to become our first personality and defines our character.

Here are 10 bad habits or Vices which I feel is stopping us from wellness and thus needs to killed

Ignoring your Health:

This is the first and the most important thing that one generally ignores in the struggle of making a living. Health always gets ignored. In the run of improving the standard of life, the quality of life is getting compromised.

Not sure how, but you have to give time to your health. Be it through Walking, Biking, meditation, Yoga…whatever suits you, cutting down on Alcohol, Smoking, Junk food. You have to allocate time to your health, else there is no point in saving or making Investments if you are not going to enjoy the wealth you accumulate.

Not upgrading yourself:

Gone are the days, when after joining a Job, you leave it only on Retirement. In today’s kind of uncertain scenario, you never know when you would be out of employment. Sometimes it is by choice and many times it is by chance.

To sustain this kind of ever-changing environment, besides performance and experience, Skills are also must. It is not safe to assume that if you have been working in a company for last 15-20 years, you have become a permanent employee. You have to keep upgrading yourself with newer technology, skills, certification…or whatever is required.

Nothing is permanent in today’s world. So always be prepared. Remember, Investing in Knowledge pays the best Interest.

Investing without goals and just for “Good returns”:

You don’t travel without having a destination in mind, you don’t drive just for the sake of enjoying high speed…and even if you do, that is also a Goal i.e. you want to enjoy high speed.

The Same way your Investments should also have a clear purpose behind it, and Getting Returns should not be the only goal. Yes, I know you like High returns but I also know that you are afraid of losses.

The goals provide you with the time frame, and timeline helps in selecting suitable instruments, and a Financial Plan tells you what speed you should have and when to stop.

I know you have time constraints, I know what you are doing is for your family only and for their better future, I know all this will earn you lot of money and you can achieve all your goals in life, but do you think all this is worth doing?

You may strive to save for your kids higher education, but in this struggle, you have compromised with the time which you could spend playing with your Child or help him in his/her studies which will make him/her better human being.

I have seen many couples fighting to decide who will go to their Child’s Parent Teacher Meeting in the school. None of them could take the break from work or wants to leave the opportunity of enjoying the rare break which they have got on Saturdays. Yes, it is easy to blame the school, teachers, peers for your child bad habits, but remember you are equally responsible.

With Money, you may be able to support your Old parents’ health requirements, but what is the point if you do not have enough time to visit them, hold their hands and tell them don’t worry you will be alright soon, I am there.

This is the core of all problems. It starts from Childhood when parents keep comparing their children with others’ in the school, in the neighborhood and among the friend circle, that sometimes brings the healthy sense of competition or many times scarcity effect in the mind.

Good rank in school means better than others. Good salary means higher than others. You do not want to get RICH but Richer than others, You do not enjoy in your friends wellbeing but remains envy of them and you are not happy with your Investment returns, but always look at other’s Portfolio or the compare the past returns.

Technically Loans are meant to fund a Big Ticket expense (Home/Car Loan) or to support business expenses, by funding working capital requirements or to meet some emergencies. But with Increasing consumerism and circulation of money, loans are available for every other purchase you want to make.

Nowadays you can fund your Phone, Furniture, Household goods, electronic items, all through EMIs. This is not all you can make all such purchases through your Phone by downloading few apps. All this results into Impulsive buying.

When you buy things on loans, you are actually betting on your uncertain future Income, and you drift yourself from Reality. Also, you tend to buy more than what is required which hits your Surplus cash flow which otherwise could have been used to invest for your future.

The festive season is On, Online sales are going on, keep yourself away from this trap, else just decide on your requirement first and then check out the sites.

Not knowing where your money is going

This is another Bad habit that I have seen in many financial Lives. You exchange your life energy, your time to earn money, the time that you otherwise could have given to your parents, your Kids, your family, and you are not aware of where your money is going. You are not aware of your spending.

If the stock market is looking good, at least from a recent performance, that doesn’t mean that you should invest a major portion of your money into this. The opposite is also true, no matter how risky or volatile your Equity markets are looking, you should always participate in it and not stay completely into debt there are ways to capture the volatility to your advantage. (Read: Why debt investments are important in an investment portfolio?)

Real estate is one investment where I have seen many people over-allocated into. It may be because this is the only place which they assume as safe and thus prefer paying EMIs rather than doing SIPs.

It is important to understand how different investment asset classes work and decide asset allocation as per the risk profile and the goals targeted. Remember Fear and Greed both are not good for your financial health. (Also read – What is Equity and how it works?)

Don’t make decisions on social media

Social media platforms are meant to Interact and share views on different matters, but making decisions based on social media interaction is not a wise thing especially in financial matters.

There cannot be any advice without knowing the in and out of the seeker. There cannot be adviser-client relationship on social media. This is a confidential thing, where the client shares all his finances and requirements with an adviser, an adviser based on his complete understanding of client’s profile give his recommendations.

Social media is good to network, chit chat, to connect with the world, to share, to read, to learn, to make views on for further research, but not to Act or React

10. Not Involving family members in financial decisionmaking

The Place for holidaying is the joint decision of all the family members. While buying Furniture, Electronics, new car and even a house, we seek out the views of family members, deciding on the school for the child we need the involvement of spouses, then why do we ignore them in Investment and other financial matters.

You buy Insurance to secure family’s financial future, but family is not aware of it. You have invested money in mutual funds, bonds, stocks, FDs for family, but family does not know where the documents are lying and whom to contact in case of your absence, you want to ensure that every financial matters should be smoothly handled and your family should use money wisely after you, but you do not write a financial plan and do not involve and explain the family members as to your plans and intentions.

The problem is sometimes not one sided.

Ask a woman what she wants, the answer comes Financial Independence, but when asked to participate in family money matters the reply comes that my husband/brother/father takes care of this area. Many times they were not asked to, but there are times where I have experienced that woman do not take interest in this subject, even if her husband requests her to.

Come what may, it is important that all stakeholders in a family should be part of financial decision-making or at least part of the whole process and have knowledge of what is happening.

It all started with Crossing the Line that Lakshman drew for Sita. You also have to learn to be in the line and work on your bad habits so the Ravana Inside you should not empower you and take away the wellness from you. Remember, your life is your choice.

Happy Dussehra!!

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He’s MBA ( Finance) gold medalist, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER and SEBI Registered Investment adviser. An ex banker , having a decade long experience in financial services industry he manages clients across the globe. He is a regular contributor to various leading Media and publication houses. He keeps on writing for Moneycontrol, Dainik bhaskar, Business standard etc. He also delivers training on Various personal finance topics to various corporate houses. You may get in touch with him at [email protected]

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Manikaran Singal is the founder and Chief financial planner at Good Moneying Financial Solutions. He is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER CM and SEBI registered Investment adviser (Regd no. INA 100001620). He’s having more than 12 years of experience in financial services space. More...